ABSTRACT
This article argues that in considering the effects of economic policy reform on women’s human rights, we must also consider the political economy mechanisms through which these effects operate. Treating the distribution of policy costs and benefits as outcomes of a given state of the world is unsatisfactory because economic policy reforms both shape and are shaped by those costs and benefits. Using a political economy model of economic policymaking, the article shows how the choice of economic policy and its impacts on women’s human rights are endogenous to various gendered political-economic forces, which have interest, institutional and ideational-based dynamics. It argues further that while the gender-related standards set out in the Guiding Principles on Foreign Debt and Human Rights are an ambitious step forward in addressing possible negative impacts on women’s human rights, their relative salience in the shaping of economic policy will be mediated by these same political-economic forces.
